Portrait of the Governor as a Young Man

It took a year, but Christie shook it off. The New Jersey State Senate having proven too lofty a first shot, he set his sights on something lower. In 1994, he entered another Republican primary, this time for a seat on the Morris County Freeholder Board (each county in New Jersey has one of these, a county legislature that operates not unlike a city council). One of Christie’s allies, a Republican activist named David Scappichio, called it “a positive, issue-oriented campaign.”

Christie decided to run with the narrative that the incumbent freeholders were up to no good. It proved useful that his opponent, a 62-year old first-term Republican and community do-gooder named Cecilia “Cissy” Laureys, was on a committee that was studying police computer systems. When Christie requested the minutes of the group’s meetings, Laureys denied any had been kept. Christie pounced, calling her a liar. When it turned out she was wrong, she admitted it was an honest mistake. Christie demanded she resign, saying, “She knew damn well what I was asking for.”

Christie clung to the minutes issue, demanding to see minutes of other private freeholder meetings. When Christie’s next request to see minutes was rejected, a prosecutor asked to see the minutes himself, and he called his request an “inquiry.”

“Hi, my name is Chris Christie,” a young, thinner Chris Christie says into the camera, his wife and infant by his side, evoking a 1950s sitcom. Christie used the ad to announce his opponents were “under investigation by the Morris County Prosecutor,” and he wanted to make sure that everyone saw it. The commercial ran 400 times (at an estimated cost of $40,000) during the famous Devils-Rangers Stanley Cup Playoff Series of 1994 and in the local commercial breaks in CNN Headline News. It ran despite the fact that it included a blatant lie: None of the incumbent freeholders was being investigated by the Morris County Prosecutor. “It’s a matter of semantics,” Christie said.

Rick Shaftan, a Republican political consultant involved in Morris County politics at the time, told me, “Team Christie makes this ad that essentially makes it sound like [the incumbent freeholders are] all about to be indicted [laughs]. They made it sound like they kicked the doors in and took all their computers.” Even when the incumbent freeholders cried foul on the ad, Christie refused to pull it. Shaftan recalled, “They corrected the ad, but they took their sweet time doing it.” And even then, Shaftan said, “It was the same ad—it just had a little strip from the bottom corner that said something like, ‘Prosecutors’ investigation complete, no indictments at this time.’”

Christie being sworn in as freeholder in 1994. | Olivia Nuzzi

The commercial did what Christie wanted it to do. Within days of its initial airing the incumbent freeholders’ poll numbers began to drop. And on Election Day, Christie had ousted Cissy Laureys from her seat. That’s when Laureys and another freeholder sued Christie for libel—and won. Christie appealed the decision, unsuccessfully, and later agreed to publicly apologize on Nov. 17, 1996, in the pages of the Daily Record.

“I recognize that a person who saw or read these advertisements could well have concluded that you have been engaged in some criminal activity or other wrongdoing in connection with your carrying out the duties of your Office,” he wrote. “This simply was not the case.”

Christie’s tail-between-his-legs apology may have been embarrassing, but he still had the office.